VAN NUYS : Woman Denies Plotting Deaths of Husband, Man
Mary Ellen Samuels denied in Van Nuys Superior Court on Monday that she hired a hit man to kill her husband, then another to kill the executioner. She also denied that she had openly searched for hired killers in bars.
But during her first full day of testifying in her own defense at her double murder-solicitation trial, Samuels admitted turning to a friend in a bar and complaining about her husband, whom she branded a child molester. She recalled saying that she wished he were dead. Then, she testified, a stranger approached her and said he knew where she could find a killer for hire.
“I fell off the bar stool,” Samuels said. Then, she recalled, she giggled.
In her testimony, Samuels, 45, disputed the stories of nearly a dozen witnesses, some of whom testified under grants of immunity from prosecution for their roles in the deaths of Robert Samuels, 40, and James Bernstein, 27, the hit man suspected of arranging his death.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Jan Maurizi is alleging that Samuels, who was divorcing her husband, had him killed so she could inherit his $500,000 estate.
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